Effects of the rate of computer-mediated speech on emotion-related subjective and physiological responses

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the results of a psychophysiological study on user's judgements on, and physiological responses to, audio news, which were presented on computer with a fast and slow reading rate. Several effects of condition, age, gender, level of education and level of computer-user experience on the evaluation of the understandability, valence, arousal and interest of the news, as well as on electrodermal and facial muscle activity were found. For example, the fast news was judged as more arousing, but the slow news as more understandable. The younger subjects judged the fast news as more positive and interesting, whereas the opposite was true for older subjects. The results have several methodological and practical implications on presenting and studying speech information in computer systems, such as speech interfaces and news services, given the possibilities afforded by modern technology to present multimodal information effectively and adapt the information and/or interfaces to fit the characteristics of the user (e.g. age).